Wings

As already mentioned, I had the ribs laser-cut by Alex at AK Models, the quality of the wood, fit & finish were perfect, and certainly much better than anything I could have made myself....

 laminating the spar caps, from spruce, they taper                                  test fit                                                        upper & lower spar installed

 from 1/2 x 1/4 at the root to 1/4 x 1/4 at the tip

1/8 balsa shearwebs between the spars , additionally, I installed 1/32 ply shearwebs front and aft of the                      Installing the ply shearwebs

spar in the first 5 bays outboard from the joiner area, from there on outwards, up to the ailerons only in

front of the spar, and from the beginning to mid-aileron 1/8 balsa shearwebs

                finished ply shearwebs                                         balsa shearwebs

           joiner box, consists of rectangular                                           fitting the joiner box

         brass tubing, embedded in 1/8 plywood

                  Joiner box and drag spar installed, the drag spar is a modification which I added,

       since the wing joiner system is a flat steel blade, which is stiff only in the vertical plane ( bending moment )

       The design and dimensions of the drag spar are copied from the drag spar in the wings of my Flair Ka8

Here the almost finished left wing, still needs the cap strips and the upper root sheeting. This will be installed after

the wings have been fitted to the fuselage and the incidence pin is installed

Spoiler installation

Initially, I wanted to make the spoilers like on the original, which had the DFS-style airbrakes. These consist of

"barn-door" type spoilers on both the upper and lower surface of the wing, with the upper spoiler door swinging

forward, and the lower one swinging aft. Since they are interconnected, this cancels out the loads on the spoilers,

making them aerodynamically balanced, requiring very little force for extension/retraction.

But the mechanics involved just turned out to be too much, I just could not get them to work properly, with both

doors closing snugly.

So I went with the spoilers on the top surface only.

                         retracted                                                                       extended

                           rear of spoiler                                                           spoiler drive & servo

Fitting the wings to the fuselage :

              Fitting the wings to the fuselage, measure, measure, and measure again...                                                     close-up of joiner carry-through

central joiner box installed, the screw presses down      Other side, with joiner blade installed, up front the   

on the brass tube inside, and so clamps down the         fwd incidence pin, aft the receptacle for the aft      

joiner blade                                                            incidence pin                                                     

                 Making the wing - fuse joint : fuselage is masked off with clear packing tape, then epoxy thickened with

                  microballoons is brought on the root rib, and the wing  is installed. Once set, the wing is removed and

                     the epoxy is sanded down to the wing contour

                                       installing the leading edge stock                                           the aftermath of shaping the leading edge...

                 trailing edge, consists of upper and lower sheeting, with                                       wingtip

                  a strip of 1/64 ply in between for additional stiffness